Can anyone clarify SSD questions for me?

Hello everyone I've been reading here for awhile and finally decided to sign up!

Anyhow, my searches didn't really get me anywhere with this one:

I've got a 2011 15" MBP 8GB, NVIDIA 1028MB VRAM, 750GB HD.

I have an amateur car review channel on YouTube that's doing pretty well. I make videos monthly if not more. (if your interested in checking it out, search for "Gallup Journey Test Drives")

Anyhow, I've been losing time waiting for my MBP so I was going to try and speed it up a bit.
I'm currently storing all media and on a 3 TB external HD via USB, and running FCP on the internal HD.

So here's the questions.
I was considering taking out the disc drive on the MBP and swapping in an SSD. This would allow me to edit on the go without hauling around a bulky external drive.
1. Can I set up the swapped SSD to be the new boot drive? And use the existing HD for media storage?
2. Do I need to physically switch the locations of the HD and SSD in order for the SSD to reach full speed via SATA III?
3. When rendering and exporting, it is the external HD with the media that's likely choking things? I export to the external HD for each video I make (Roughly 10-15 minutes of HD content...usually at 720P)
4. Would I see the biggest benefit from actually running two internal SSD's in my MBP for rendering and exporting? Taking advantage of both their faster read and write speeds?

Hope this isn't too much info to ask for my 1st post!

thanks!

I've done pretty much what you propose.
I have upped the RAM to 16GB, replaced the system drive with a 240GB SSD, removed the DVD drive and replaced it with the original 750GB hard drive.
I placed the DVD in an external USB case from Amazon for the rare occasions i need it.

It has transformed my MBP.

If you go ahead I don't think you will be disapointed.

I got a local Apple Tech to do the work, he did it for the same cost as it would have been for me to buy the parts.

Hi Gcavy1, welcome to the forums.

I no longer have my mid 2010 15" MBP, but I did similar with it that you're asking about here.The performance was greatly improved, primarily for exporting and general system responsiveness. Transcoding was not improved noticeably. This is because transcoding primarily relies on the GPU.

To answer your questions:
Re: #1 Yes, install an SSD as a boot drive. You can use your existing HDD as an additional internal. You might consider upgrading that disk to a 7200 RPM spindle drive, Makes a difference.
Re: #2 I'm not sure if it matters on your model (early, late 2011??) but for most MB Pro models the SATA III is at the DVD connection as well.
Re: #3 The external drive might be a problem at exporting as it's only USB 2. You should use Firewire 800.
Re: #4 Not so much. Again, rendering is mostly a GPU function and you can't change that about your 2011 MBP. before I mentioned a 7200 RPM drive, but if you have budget there are a couple other advantages if all SSD. 1, there would be slight improvement over any spinning disk. 2, you would have a quieter machine with no vibration except the fan. 3, the fan runs less with no spinning drives in my experience. Plus, with short YouTube videos your primary objective perhaps you can live with the capacities of more affordable SSDs, they are getting cheaper all the time now.

One last thought, if you can bump the ram to 16, do it. Although I suspect your model caps at 8GB.

thanks guys, very helpful. I think I will go with moving my 7200rpm HD over to the DVD bay, and then putting at 512GB SSD into the system drive spot.
Not sure I want to spend the $ to go 16GB (From my current 8GB) that's a solid $200. Would I see THAT much of an improvement in performance?

Lastly, I know there is a lot out there on this, but I never really grasped the new media storage layout in FCPX when they went to the latest version. Can you point to a simple video or link explaining this? Basically, I don't want FCP to have to constantly load and have ready all sorts of old projects and media that I won't be using on my current projects.
What's the best setup with multiple drives to insure I'm only using the media needed and not subjecting my CPU to extra tasks I don't need it to do?
Thanks again!

Ripple Training on YouTube:





Hope this helps, I brought their Media Management in FCPX 3rd edition too.

As for Ram I did find a BIG difference, my new MBPr has 16gb IF they still made the 17" I would have brought it and used it exclusively.

Rob

I'll echo the comment regarding RAM. I noticed quite a difference with the extra 8GB.